gray

Please post your 200 words (no more!) by clicking the comments link at the bottom of this post, keeping in mind The Rules. Next Sunday evening 6/23/13, last week’s winner Amy W will read the entries and select a winner.

Five in the morning, he had his boots on, spurs also. And although he rarely wore his broad-brimmed hat indoors, there it was. Ready he may have been, twitching almost in his eagerness to go, and yet he ate his biscuit slowly, as if such pleasures would soon become mere memories and not future possibilities.
“Son,” he said evenly, and the boy who slept in the chair startled to life. “Make sure my rifle is good and clean.” The boy mumbled yessir and vanished from the room with panicked steps that pained the uneven floorboards.
Standing now. “Ginny!” he called, although his wife was sitting not ten feet away. “Don’t be cross with me. I always told you that if Robert E. Lee needs men, I will be there. God willing, we will prevail. And if we fail, I pray to return to you intact.”
He buttoned his gray jacket with self-conscious dignity, as if fixing an image in his family’s minds. He cleared his throat. The boy handed him his rifle without making eye contact. He sobbed and left the room again. As if on cue, a servant swung the front door open as far as it would go. It slipped from his hand and hit against the house with a thunderous crash. Husband and wife looked at each other, as if assessing the significance of it. Possibly there was none. The man stepped onto the porch. Pellets of rain were flung down from bluish clouds. He swore quietly, and walked toward his horse. Admittedly the horse was afraid. So was the man.

Would someone mind writing about waking up one morning & accidentally getting out of bed & directly stepping into ‘the gray area’ and spending the rest of the day/week/month in that puddle of “gray”? What do the islands of gray look like & consist of? What would it be like to re-surface & begin the same day out of the gray puddle?

Five A.M., he had his boots on. Although he rarely wore his hat indoors, there it was. He was ready, twitching with it, yet he ate his biscuit slowly, as if such would become mere memories and not future possibilities.
“Son,” he said. The boy sleeping in the chair startled to life. “Make sure my rifle’s good and clean.” Yessir. The boy vanished with panicked steps that paining the floorboards.
“Ginny!” the man called. “Don’t be cross with me. I always told you that if Robert E. Lee needs men, I will be there.”
He buttoned his gray jacket with self-conscious dignity, as if fixing an image in his family’s minds. The boy handed him his rifle without making eye contact. He sobbed and left the room again. A servant swung the front door open as far as it would go. It slipped from his hand and struck the house. Husband and wife looked at each other, as if assessing the significance of it. The man stepped onto the porch. Pellets of rain were flung down from bluish clouds. He swore quietly, and walked toward his horse. The horse was afraid. So was the man.

I demand a recount! I’m pretty sure Shlabotnik’s I want to forget… should have won. It was so haunting, I didn’t even want to submit anything, but this concept came to me in church this morning, and it came together better than I expected.

Anyways, if the official committee upholds this decision, then the word I choose for next week is one I’ve always enjoyed the sound of: ‘gossamer’ adjective or noun is OK by me; I can’t wait to see what this talented crowd does with it. (Tell a friend! Let’s make the crowd more crowded!)